


Dear Robin

by shallows



Category: WTFock | Skam (Belgium)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, I have a lot of feelings and sander has a lot of feelings, M/M, robbe is baby as usual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-06
Updated: 2019-12-06
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21694849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shallows/pseuds/shallows
Summary: Donderdag 19:24 through Sander's eyes.
Relationships: Sander Driesen/Robbe IJzermans
Comments: 11
Kudos: 182
Collections: Skam Belgium (Wtfock) ▶ Sander Driesen / Robbe Ijzermans





	Dear Robin

**Author's Note:**

> This is entirely rushed and written on sleep deprivation, but it's full of heart so I hope you like it! (Not beta read)
> 
> Thank you so much to @wtfockenglish on tumblr for the much needed translated dialogue.
> 
> You can find me on [tumblr](https://evenbechnaesheim.tumblr.com/) as well!

There’s a, possibly embarrassing but still warranted, skip in his step as Sander makes his way across the street, boots sliding through the damp ground without much traction, a good analogy for how weightless and clumsy his heart feels at this very moment.

Somehow it’s December already and the night is approaching quick and dark, the air so cold that mist escapes his mouth as he breathes harshly in his haste. Yet, the day has never felt brighter and he has never felt warmer.

Seeing Robbe’s apartment complex hasn’t always inspired in him the same feeling. Once, in the aftermath of a magical night, the sight of it had gone from making him giddy with hope to devastated from heartbreak in a matter of seconds. Another time, he had approached the building desperate and regretful, weighted down by all his failings and almost utterly hopeless; at the beginning of that night he had felt like if he was to get what he deserved he would be seeing this building for the last time, but, as if by a miracle, he got to stay until the morning.

Now, though, there’s only one thought coursing through him as he gets to the front door and rings the bell, a thought as loud as it should be ridiculous and that is the farthest thing from all the crushing feelings of before. As he approaches, his only thought is: _I’m home_.

He climbs up the stairs almost in a run after he’s let in the foyer, bursting with excitement. A man on a mission.

Milan opens the door to the flat with the bright smile Sander has quickly become accustomed to: open and warm and _inviting_ , a smile that had made him feel welcome since day one.

“Hey, Sander!”

“Everything alright?” Sander asks, smiling back at him before he lets his eyes dart around the room in search of what he’s really looking for.

He texted Robbe as soon as he was done with his exam, making sure to emphasize how important it was for Robbe to do exactly as Sander told him. But all he got back was a silly emoji and a change in conversation that he allowed simply because, as dedicated as he is to his mission, he’s always interested in every off-topic thing Robbe has to say.

But Sander isn’t about to be deterred by his boyfriend’s reticence to fun, no matter how cute he is (or _especially_ because of how cute he is and how much Sander loves him).

“Is Robbe in his room?” he asks.

“Yeah, he’s in his room,” Milan says. His voice has that teasing tone he always uses with him, like he knows that Sander is up to no good and he enjoys it immensely.

Sander turns his head from where he was looking in the direction of Robbe’s room to stare at Milan in the eyes. This is important and he needs Milan to know it’s important.

“Did he set his shoe out or…?” 

“Eh,” Milan replies, still smiling in amusement. “I don’t know about that.”

Sander frowns and decides that he needs to go check it for himself. He walks around Milan who lets him past with a quiet huff of laughter, and makes his way to Robbe’s room.

“Did you set your shoe out already?” he asks, opening the door. He has his serious face on because this is a serious subject that requires serious handling. Again: man on a mission. He has a job to do tonight and he will do it with no distractions.

Robbe looks up from his phone, laughs and says “Nee,” in that way of his that shows he didn’t actually think Sander meant what he said in his texts about this particular subject.

“Wouldn’t you hurry up, then?” Sander says, undeterred. “Otherwise you won’t get anything from the Sint. And I heard from reliable sources that you’ve been good this year.”

Robbe’s smile is as sweet as sugar when he walks up to him, and Sander can tell he’s looking for a kiss. He’s always looking for a kiss, always so soft, needy for the affection in a way that makes Sander feel so wonderfully wanted down to the marrow of his bones.

It’s easy to deny him, though. Teasing Robbe with kisses he doesn’t deliver makes the butterflies constantly wrecking havoc in Sander’s stomach sing. Because teasing only makes Robbe want it more, and the more Robbe wants it the more Sander wants it too. It’s a push and pull that feels fun and young and hopeful, a game that Sander never tires of playing because he always wins gold in the end.

Sander lets Robbe approach him and lean in, waits for his sweet eyes (everything about him is sweet, so sweet) to close before putting a hand up and gently pushing him away.

“Wait,” he says in a playful, but still serious tone. “first your shoe.”

He looks down at the floor and ah! There it is, almost like an offering and a sign from the universe that he’s on the right track with his idea.

“I see a fine specimen right here. Perfect.”

Sander wastes a second to take off his leather jacket, part of him in awe of how special it is that he feels so comfortable in this atypical home that it’s second nature to strip down layers he wouldn’t have in most places.

He bends down to grab the shoe and says, “There we go. And then sugar cubes and a carrot.”

When he looks at Robbe again the boy is looking back with that cute expression that reminds him of a confused puppy. It’s utterly adorable and almost enough to leave Sander defenseless. But he’s still focused on his mission, a mission that is all for Robbe with the ultimate goal of making him happy, and so he doesn’t feel too bad about taking the teasing from before a step further.

“What?” he asks, before tilting his head and aw’ing. “Don’t you want anything from the Sint?”

Robbe’s eyes are quick to take on an intensity that Sander immediately recognizes and knows he can exploit.

“I do,” Robbe says. He’s still looking for that kiss.

Sander steps forward, looks down at Robbe’s lips because he knows his boyfriend will fall for it again, like he always does. And maybe it’s a bit of an asshole move, and part of Sander is dying to rush forward and steal that kiss for himself, but there’s that thrill in the tease that he can’t say no to. Besides, Sander has a tendency to turn to mush the moment he lets Robbe wrap himself around him and kiss him senseless, so he needs to not kiss him until he’s done everything right.

“Come on then.”

He steps away again and grabs Robbe’s smaller hand with his own, dragging his boyfriend along to the kitchen.

“But, Sander…” Robbe whines.

Sander can hear the complaint in his voice that he’d never voice out loud, but he doesn’t put up much of a fight. He knows Sander enough by now to understand that there’s no stopping what’s happening and Sander has no words for how amazing it feels that Robbe is always willing to go along with whatever it is Sander has planned, even if he’s reluctant. Even if he’s denied kisses.

“Didn’t put his shoe out. I told you so,” Sander tells Milan when they enter the kitchen.

“What, Robbe?” Sander smiles when he hears Milan’s voice and notices that it’s still teasing. There’s _so much_ _teasing_ in this flatshare; the happy, kind and bubbly type of teasing that Sander can still barely believe he’s allowed to be a part of. “Come on, no shoe on package night?”

Sander opens the fridge and looks inside, focused on his search for a carrot but not too focused that he doesn’t hear Robbe mock Milan’s accent, like the little shit he can be and that Sander adores so much.

“You don’t have any carrots?” he asks when his search becomes fruitless.

“I don’t think so,” Milan says. “I don’t know.” 

Sander turns back to the fridge, facing a problem but not discouraged, and hears Robbe let out the most adorable giggle. Sander smiles to himself over it.

A week ago he hadn’t believed he’d ever be allowed to have this: a place to go to that is warm and feels like home, where four other people have formed a mishmash family and allowed Sander in, where Robbe is sitting on the counter so happy and carefree that he can joke around and laugh without boundaries, where Sander doesn’t have to see the pain he caused reflected on Robbe’s sweet, sweet eyes and gets to teasingly deny him kisses instead.

It’s a blessing he never thought was meant for someone like him, his own metaphorical present in his shoe that he had wished for during many sleepless nights. Something so lovely and precious that he has sworn to never take for granted.

He finds a cucumber in the fridge. It’s definitely not a carrot, it’s not even orange, but Sander has never been stopped before just because something wasn’t exactly how he’d expected it to, and he’s not about to start now.

Sometimes things are perfect, the way Robbe is in Sander’s eyes, and sometimes things are imperfect, the way this cucumber is right now. Sander finds that there’s beauty in that balance: a perfect thing to counteract an imperfect one. Bowie playing in a supermarket as he attempts to woo his crush versus the fear of only getting to look at this beautiful boy for a week. A perfect first kiss in a pool at the end of a perfect night versus a heartbreaking morning after. A perfect reunion with the boy of his dreams versus all of Sander’s fuck ups and shortcomings.

Maybe perfect things get to coexist besides imperfect ones. Like Robbe and Sander. Maybe, in the end, Sander’s imperfect edges won’t tear down Robbe’s perfect everything. Maybe perfect and imperfect will find balance. And, maybe, Sander will get to keep this forever.

“This will do,” he says, grabbing the cucumber.

“He’ll find that tasty, too,” says Milan.

Sander takes the cucumber and goes looking for sugar cubes. He’s been around this flat many times since he got Robbe back and he knows he at least can get those. Perfect and imperfect. He’s got this. He’s going to make Robbe happy.

“He is doing the works,” Milan points out.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” Robbe replies. “Our artist.”

Sander snorts at that. He feels all soft in his heart, like someone took a blender to his insides and turned everything to sweet sugary mush. That’s what Robbe does to him, with the simplest things, without even needing to try. Robbe is that blender, if blenders can be gentle and kind and wholesome. Sander is sure there must be one just like that, somewhere in one of the other universes if not in this one.

He sets Robbe’s shoe on the table, puts the cucumber inside and sits two sugar cubes on top.

“Voilá!” he exclaims. “Is it that hard to put out your shoe?”

He moves towards Robbe. His mission is done for tonight, he made it. Now all that’s left is to go and finally kiss his boyfriend silly, so he does just that.

Sander puts his hands on Robbe’s small waist, gripping softly, and doesn’t wait one more second before leaning in and finally kissing him. Robbe immediately wraps his arms around Sander’s shoulders and moves his body closer, never hesitating to kiss back despite how many times Sander pulled out of kisses tonight.

Robbe never hesitates to give him affection. It’s one of the reasons Sander really needed to do this right, because Robbe always gives him so much without ever demanding anything back and it’s about time Sander had his turn.

That day on the beach weeks ago, Sander listened carefully, soaking up every bit of knowledge of Robbe he was allowed to learn. Sander was insurmountably sad for him when the boy said he never had any traditions. He knew on a personal level what it was like to not have many happy things, and even more so to have things that he wished he didn’t have, but at least he had a history to look back on and rejoice in when life got bad. The fact that Robbe, the best person in the world in Sander’s very valid opinion, didn’t have something like that to hold on to in his bad days should be considered a crime in and of itself.

Sander thought of starting this tradition with Robbe right then and there on that beach. It was perhaps too early to start thinking of such things, but Sander had already decided Robbe was the one after all. It was no surprise that he already wanted to give him everything.

Then things happened, very bad things, and Sander thought that he had lost his chance to make Robbe happy, every day, for the rest of their lives. So when Robbe forgave him, this idea came back full force, constantly at the front of his mind.

Sander would start those traditions for Robbe. He would start those traditions for the both of them. It was a promise to himself that he had to keep.

He’s now so elated that he did.

His arms wrap around Robbe’s middle and pick him off the counter, ready to take the celebration of their new tradition to Robbe’s room where he can kiss him and kiss him, and be surrounded until the morning by the brightness of his soul that seeps from him and onto Sander like warm sunshine.

The boy is so light, shaped like he was made to be wrapped around Sander and stay like that forever, just the two of them melting into one, just like it’s been since the day they found each other underwater.

Sander thinks that he doesn’t need anything else in life but Robbe. He could probably survive just on this love. (He _hopes_ he can survive just on this love.)

He’s so immersed in everything that is Robbe that he completely forgets Milan is in the room until the man speaks up.

“Hey, hey, hey!” he exclaims. “Is that all?”

Sander detaches himself from Robbe, dazed.

“What?”

“Don’t you guys have to sing?” Milan asks, and fuck! Sing!

How could have Sander forgotten to _sing_?

“Ah, yes,” he says, looking at Robbe with what he knows is the fondest of looks. That’s always how he looks at Robbe, he knows it and everyone around to witness knows it too, but he can never find it in himself to feel embarrassed about that.

Robbe is already looking hesitant, like he’s going to say no, his cute face twisted up in denial.

“Where I’m from we always had to sing on package night. At least one song,” Milan insists.

“Nee,” Robbe says, shaking his head, his beautiful and warm eyes never leaving Sander. “No, I’m not going to sing.”

“Yes, you are! At least one song,” says Milan. “The steamboat. That’s what we’ll sing now.”

“The steamboat,” Sander immediately agrees, smiling bright. It’s perfect. “Come on.”

He pushes Robbe gently but firmly towards the table where he’d set the shoe, his mind ahead of his mouth and already singing in excitement.

“No, I’ll listen,” Robbe insists.

He doesn’t want to do it, but he’s already laughing. Sander can almost taste the joy of the situation growing inside the boy, and he can’t get enough of it.

Milan and Sander count down to one and start singing. Sander can’t keep his eyes off of Robbe, not when his every reaction to this moment feels like the most important thing to save to memory.

He’s so precious and he doesn’t even know it. And Sander love him, loves him, loves him.

He puts his hands on Robbe, moves his body and encourages him to sing along, to let the silliness and the happiness of their new tradition envelop him until he understands just how good life can be, how imperfectly perfect they can be together.

Robbe laughs and sings and then laughs some more. His smile is as bright as the moonlight shining on him the first night he came into Sander’s life. He’s so lovely, just as lovely as Sander knew he would be. But the paradox is that he’s somehow even _more_. He’s everything Sander expected and wanted and more than he ever thought he could be all at once. He’s a pipedream that became reality.

He’s soft and gentle but still an explosion of intense colors. At the same time so small and larger than the world.

He’s the love of Sander’s life. 100%, forever, in every universe.

In the morning, if he manages to stop marveling at Robbe long enough to fall asleep, Sander will wake up early and meticulously display sweets around Robbe’s shoe. He will smile down at some of the best art he’s ever made and grab a piece of paper. He will touch it with a pen and he will write,

_Dear Robin, thank you for all the goodies for Slechtweervandaag. I heard you were a good boy this past year. Even though you teased your broerrrs sometimes. These last few months have been quite hard on you. That’s why I have a special present. Come to the Keizerstraat at 19:30 tonight, and you’ll get a special surprise._

And later he will give Robbe the first date they should’ve had, filled with nothing but laughter and love.

But for now he’ll stay in this moment, his arms holding Robbe from behind, singing at the top of his lungs with two people who feel like family, in this flatshare washed in warm light.

And he thinks that if life were to end soon this would be the perfect moment for it to happen.

He’d leave this world finally knowing what it’s like to be truly, perfectly happy.


End file.
